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A Staggering 19x Energy Jump in Capacitors May Be the Beginning of the End for Batteries (www.popularmechanics.com)

submitted 4 months ago by floofloof@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.ml

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[–] WaterWaiver@aussie.zone 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (11 children)

There have been constant news articles coming out over the past few years claiming the next big thing in supercapacitor and battery technologies. Very few actually turn out to work practically.

The most exciting things to happen in the last few years (from an average citizen's perspective) are the wider availability of sodium ion batteries (I believe some power tools ship with them now?), the continued testing of liquid flow batteries (endless trials starting with the claim that they might be more economic) and the reduction in costs of lithium-ion solid state batteries (probably due to the economics of electric car demand).

FWIW the distinction between capacitors and batteries gets blurred in the supercapacitor realm. Many of the items sold or researched are blends of chemical ("battery") and electrostatic ("capacitor") energy storage. The headline of this particular pushes the misconception that these concepts can't mix.

My university login no longer works so I can't get a copy of the paper itself :( But from the abstract it looks first stage, far from getting excited about:

This precise control over relaxation time holds promise for a wide array of applications and has the potential to accelerate the development of highly efficient energy storage systems.

"holds promise" and "has the potential" are not miscible with "May Be the Beginning of the End for Batteries".

[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (4 children)

There have been constant news articles coming out over the past few years claiming the next big thing in supercapacitor and battery technologies.

More like decades. Anyone remembers buckyballs and buckytubes? What happened to that?

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[–] qupada@kbin.social 1 points 4 months ago (5 children)

I've been seeing a lot about Sodium-ion just in the past week.

While they seem to have a huge advantage in being able to charge and discharge at some fairly eye-watering rates, the miserable energy density would seem to limit them to stationary applications, at least for now.

Perfect for backup power, load shifting, and other power-grid-tied applications though.

[–] Rinox@feddit.it 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I mean, I wouldn't mind a car with "only" 200km range, but that can charge up to full in just 5 minutes. I use my car just for work 99% of the time anyway, the times I need to go somewhere further away I can easily stop midway to charge, get a coffee in the meantime and then be on my way.

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[–] lengau@midwest.social 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I thought one of the main advantages of sodium-ion batteries was price? Great for the applications you listed

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[–] Ptsf@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Although we don't see it, all of these developments do actually eventually make their way into battery tech. The batteries of today are not the batteries of 2014.

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

If you remember what battery powertools were like in early 2010s, it's super obvious how far we've come. The higher end things like battery powered lawn mowers didn't exist, and if you wanted real power, you needed a cord.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

I mentally nicknamed them the twins. Two guys who worked together with their two drills. Each had a double sized DeWalt battery and another spare double sized. Last time I saw them was 2016. So yeah you got an acedotal backing you up.

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Cord mowing has a long established tradition.

[–] sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I mowed my grass with a corded mower for a decade until the motor bearing finally disintegrated. Cost me $100 and one blade replacement. No small gas engine was ever that reliable for me

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Did you ever mow your power cord though?

[–] sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 months ago

Nah, just zig zag away from where you plugged it in and it's never a problem.

[–] GenosseFlosse@lemmy.nz 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I still remember that in the 90s till the 2000s you would get maybe 60 to 90 minutes of battery life out of a new laptop. Then it jumped to 4 or more hours thanks to better batteries, more energy efficient CPUs and displays.

[–] jose1324@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Laptops is a bad example. The improvements are moreso the chips and efficient hardware, not the battery

[–] odelik@lemmy.today 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I just wish it was an either/or situation.

I don't always need my lawn mower/blower/weed trimmer on batteries. I wish I could easily plug them in when doing light dut work close to the house. But then they couldn't tie me into their battery ecosystem as easily.

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 1 points 4 months ago

I've seen a Makita eletric brush cutter with an adapter to plug straight into a standard outlet. The person who bought the machine told me it was more expensive than a battery pack but at least it made the machine usable for longer periods of time when energy is available.

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Electrolytic capacitors are closer to batteries than to non-polarized capacitors. Lithium-ion cells in capacitor housings also exist, presumably to evade tariffs and restrictions involved in shipping batteries.

$Super Li-ion battery NSC1015 high ratio Li-ion rechargeable battery 80mah 3C MAX current 10150 10\*15mm 1pcs$

[–] mysteryname101@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

They’re more of a hybrid technology. They have some great applications.

Like temporary storage when using regen from a car. They can buffer the energy and help with a rapid acceleration.

Dash cam in a car. They can charge the cap and in the event in a malfunction / event. The camera can continue to record.

Solar lamps. Charge during the day. Release energy during the night.

They’re poor at long term storage. Great at fast and temp storage.

[–] Yerbouti@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Upvoted because this is true. I knew that information so I can confirm it. I swear I did.

[–] RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 months ago

This somehow makes me less trusting of the previous comment.

[–] Hugin@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Electrolytic capacitors use the chemistry to make a very high dielectric allowing the plates to get very close and increase the capacitance and decrease the size.

A cell in a battery is a capacitor then converts the charge on the plates into chemical energy and vice versa allowing much more energy storage and a flat operating range as the plates charge is replenished by the chemical reaction.

This article doesn't go into details but it sounds like the breakthrough is a much better dialectic then storing energy in a chemical reaction.

[–] ConstantPain@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Good comment, but check your uses of "then".

[–] Hugin@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Yeah should have that. Mornings are hard.

[–] buzz86us@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

I really hope it leads to something no energy loss for regen would be GOAT

[–] itsnicodegallo@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago (7 children)

Serious question: How is this different than all the other sensationalized headlines about some technology that's gonna change everything, and then you later hear nothing about it?

[–] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I had a little discussion with a guy complaining about sodium batteries and how you keep hearing these wild claims and then nothing. I did a quick search and saw an article about a $2 billion partnership agreement to work on a pilot plant for sodium batteries. He claimed it was yet another sensational headline and doubted anything would happen from it. Less than a week later I saw an article about a plant in America being announced.

This stuff is hard. It's not like Master of Orion where you throw money at a specific research and get access upon completion. Different groups around the world are researching a multitude of different ideas, some related, and after a while a bunch of these ideas are combined and associated and researched, and all of a sudden you have a new product that's significantly different from what was available before. And then you see incremental improvements for decades, not unlike the internal combustion engine or rechargeable lithium batteries.

[–] pingveno@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

It's the same with many infrastructure problems. You hear about some interesting infrastructure project that's going to transform regional travel, improve transit, make biking/walking safer, or prepare for future natural disasters. Then it takes forever for them to go into place because it takes a long time to plan, do the legal work, and build. But then the infrastructure goes into place and no one thinks twice about the long process behind it.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Then it takes forever for them to go into place b

I have an item that costs me 40 to buy. I sell you the item for 200. I get a hundred now and a hundred when you get the item. If I fill the order now I get my 100. However if I wait a year I get an interest free loan on the 40 bucks. Maybe I push you off for 10 years. I not only get the 100 you owe me I also doubled that 40. If I am a big company I can pull this off, if I am a one man operation I can't. Guess who gets hired for these projects. Hint it isnt Jeff's gutter repair.

And that is just fixed priced contracts. You can imagine the horrorshow of open ended ones.

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[–] mysteryname101@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Sodium batteries look great. They also can use the same manufacturing equipment as lithium batteries. Reducing the capital costs for the product.

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[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Material science has just been crushing it for a good long minute now.

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[–] deaf_fish@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I wonder if we will get to a point where capacitor batteries will be too good.

Can you image a small issue leading to an entire instantaneous energy dump of a large capacity capacitor while on an airplane?

Make me wonder if we will limit how fast a capacitor can discharge in some consumer goods.

[–] antone715@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

We already do with resistors.

[–] PriorityMotif@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

And fuses and breakers

[–] MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think we have more pressing issues in certain airplanes at the moment, but that's a good point.

[–] filcuk@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 months ago

Can't blow up the plane if it falls apart first

[–] TBi@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Yeah. Good thing we don’t fill up planes with flammable material today!

[–] zurohki@aussie.zone 1 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Headline is dumb. If capacitors are better at being batteries than batteries are, they just become the next generation of batteries.

[–] ji17br@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

But capacitors aren’t batteries. Batteries store chemical energy. Capacitors store electrical potential energy. Electronically they behave much differently.

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Yes they do… including not holding a charge when the differential drops too far.

The real wins are in battery-backed capacitors. Charge the caps fast, then let them keep the batteries topped up.

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[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 1 points 4 months ago

There are no absolute numbers in here. How much charge can it hold? How does that compare to an AAA battery? How long can it hold the charge and how does it compare? What dimensions would it need to have to store as much as a AAA battery? What's the current projected price?

Anti Commercial-AI license

[–] SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I can't wait to see this technology in motorcycles and micro mobility vehicles. It will be a mushroom in Mario Kart IRL. And imagine this tech on drag bikes/cars

[–] antidote101@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Unfortunately the technology will also be used for creating new weapons of war.

[–] reddithalation@sopuli.xyz 1 points 4 months ago

I wanna see some even more insane FPV drones. theres always some battery breakthrough though, so I don't wanna get my hopes up.

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